Medellin staffers work 24/7 for typhoon victims

Coughing and feverish, 40-year-old Rodecario Tudlasan still kept encoding the names of thousands of typhoon victims in Medellin town in the barangay hall at past 9 p.m. last Sunday.

Tudlasan and five other staff members in the Medellin mayor’s office have not been home for two weeks even before supertyphoon “Yolanda” made landfall in northern Cebu last Nov. 8.

Hours after Yolanda left Medellin town, Tudlasan and fellow staffers Giles Anthony Villamor, Jonathan Rosette, Ruth Gillamac, Michelle Lobitaña and Dexter Diola shared the fate of over 12,000 families who lost their homes in the aftermath.

Most of the residents of the town’s 19 barangays were left hungry and desolate and had to rely on the mayor’s staff and the rest of the municipal government for food, material and medical assistance 24/7.

Much as they wanted to rebuild their own homes, Tudlasan, Villamor, Rosette, Lobitaña, Diola and Gillamac were unable to do so since they spent most of their time and energy attending to the needs of their town mates.

Traumatized

Villamor sent his children to relatives in Cebu City.

Still traumatized by the howling winds that tore the roof off their home, Villamor’s children were jolted anew by a 3.6-magnitude aftershock that hit the city last Saturday.

“My daughter ran scared, nabukol hinuon ang agtang (she sustained a lump on her forehead),” Villamor said.

Rosette, the 35-year-old municipal social welfare officer, didn’t fare any better.

While he was kept busy facilitating the delivery of relief goods, Rosette said he had to endure the complaints of typhoon victims who aired their grievances of the slow distribution of relief aid to radio commentators.

Call of duty

“My mother and sister are sleeping under a tarpaulin. But this is the call of duty, we are ready to help and work with a smile,” said Rosette, a resident of sitio Calle Rizal.

As Tudlasan encoded the names of displaced families, he told Cebu Daily News that he doesn’t know where to get money to repair the family house built with light materials.

“I went to the hardware to inquire, I was told we need to make a reservation because there’s no ready supply so it’s per order basis,” he said.

Diola, a resident of sitio Tawagan barangay Poblacion, guides private groups distributing aid in the different barangays.

While he helped repack goods for the victims, his own mother complained to him that they were running out of food.

Restored

Diola said he’s thankful for the help of friends and relatives outside town.

Another worker, Flor Tumabini barely escaped the collapse of her family home in sitio Panas, barangay Lamintak Sur.

Tumabini said she and her family took shelter at a house abandoned by their neighbor.

Job order employee Joel Lambo left his pregnant wife and their children aged one and three years old with a neighbor.

Lambo, who’s in his 20s, is kept busy helping unload donated goods that include 100 to 150 sacks of rice a day from delivery trucks.

More than three weeks after the typhoon hit, power and water has been restored in some houses.

Some survivors sorted through what remained of their homes in hopes that they can still be used for rebuilding while they wait for the promised housing materials from the Cebu provincial government.

Until that material assistance comes, Tudlasan and his fellow staffers can only hope that they be given some time off from relief aid duties to care for their own. /Jeanette P. Malinao, Copy Editor